The Blair Witch Project

by D. K. Holm

he latest in word-of-mouth hits, The Blair Witch Project is a much-touted Sundance-blessed mockumentary claiming to gather and sort the found footage made by three Montgomery College film students out to track down the truth of Maryland's Blair Witch. Generally resembling films ranging from 84 Charlie Mopic to Cannibal Holocaust, Blair Witch follows the trio from their antiseptic or upper class abodes to damp tents in a cold forest, where weird sounds at night suggest someone or something lurking just outside the range of their 16mm and video camera's lights. The film ends with an image chilling in its simplicity — once you figure it out.

As you might be able to guess, the story is really about film school types. The cast members, who take their own names as the character's monikers, consist of Heather Donahue as the pushy, bossy, driven, teasing, sometimes even hostile director of the school project, her cameraman Joshua Leonard, more laid back and less ambitious, and Michael Williams, the plump sound man, the runt of the litter who ends up with most of the anger. If Blair Witch isn't entirely successful as a horror film, partly it's because we are suffocatingly confined with these unpleasant characters for 88 minutes. But then, they are stuck with each other, too. Thus the film's clever premise is also its downfall, as the found footage idea both focuses the narrative but also imprisons the viewer.

The film's almost self-propelled promotional campaign is a publicist's dream. Riding the crest of positive word-of-mouth generated by good Sundance notices and remarks in key media outlets (much the way Reservoir Dogs garnered attention for itself among the right people), buffs looked forward to it or wanted to see it because they thought that they'd discovered it themselves, rather then having it rammed down their throats like the big summer releases. Positive word of mouth, as it happens, does not long survive most screenings. For one thing, it is not as scary as it's claimed to be. It's eerie and creepy, but also fairly slow and clotted, and because of its adherence to the found footage principle somewhat confusing as to just what it is that's hunting the three kids.

As with every other highly anticipated cultural product this summer — Hannibal; Star Wars 1 : The Phantom Menace — Blair Witch comes off underwhelmingly. The word-of-mouth has created expectations that can't possibly be matched (and, O for the horror film that does match those dreams!), but which aren't the concerns of the film anyway, much more interested as it is in the dynamics of filmmakers failing to make a film. In any case, Blair Witch Project, the movie, is only one prong of a multiple attack. There is also the web site for the film and a television special, The Curse of the Blair Witch (broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel and immediately available for purchase). A book and a comic are also in the works. Together all these entities pretend that the documentary is based on truth, and that the mystery continues to this day.

In many ways, the Curse of the Blair Witch is actually better than the movie to which it is companion and complement. A parody of In Search Of ... style shows, it lays out the whole Blair Witch mythology in chronological order. But it also contains cunning mimicry of such things as the old '70s four wallers such as Chariots of the Gods and Nostradamus, in this case a browning, scratchy fake film featuring a male witch in sunglasses and jewelry dilating on witches in general, and the Blair witch in particular. The only flaw in this otherwise cunning mockumentary, consisting of interviews with friends, families, skeptics, and true believers, is the occasional Florida accents of people who are suppose to be Marylandians. But for the most part, it is richly amusing while supporting loyally the lead film. In footage supposedly set in a prison prior to the execution of the serial killer of children the filmmakers capture perfectly the postures of reporters as seen in grainy old footage from the '30s and '40s and the monosyllabic and monotonal responses of a condemned man getting one last moment in the flash bulbs.

The scene with killer Rustin Parr in The Curse of the Blair Witch contains the clue that explains the conclusion of Blair Witch proper. Parr would kill his kids in pairs, but have the first one stand with his or her face to the basement wall while he disemboweled the companion. At the end, when Heather races through the now empty Parr house trying to keep up with a desperate Michael, summoned by what they take to be the cries of the missing Joshua, she ends up in the same basement right behind Michael. The last thing she sees as she comes down the stairs, just before her own camera is knocked out of her hands and shuts down, is Michael, mysteriously standing in the corner facing the brick wall, his shoulders slumped in defeat, obeying the commands of some entity that is now going to disembowel Heather. It's a chilling moment, but even more so if you understand it.

Which I suppose is the main "problem" with the film. By not being the traditional teen slasher type of horror film, it forsakes clarity for mood, special effects for necessarily vague suggestion, a budgetary constraint that is also an effort to turn a stumbling block into an advantage. To suggest that Blair Witch might have been better with five kids instead of three, and that there be more night scenes of terror and fewer daylight mental breakdown and recrimination scenes is perhaps to take the mistaken stance that it should be what it is not — a Friday the 13th — but it is also to yearn for the film to live up to its advance word. The filmmakers sense this disparity. The image they use to promote the film on the poster, an image already iconic in the culture, is of Heather pointing a flashlight on her face for self-filming purposes, apologizing to whomever will find this footage for putting her crew in jeopardy. A close up, partially obscured face, set against inky blackness wherein lurks ungodly terrors, eyes tearing, nose running, face bleached by the harsh light, can do nothing but make us uneasy, and imagine terrors as terrible as the ones the character imagines but never sees. It's a vivid image that suggests much more than the film actually delivers. Perhaps the filmmakers will get that right in Blair Witch 2 — which according to the rules of the mythology must take place in 2055.

Post screening conversations with Dr Charles Ransom Schwenk led to the insight about the film's final image, for which the author is grateful.

The web is filled with info about Blair Witch, but one among many interesting reviews, written by Charles Mudede, can be found on the website for The Stranger.

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